Page 18 - Dream 2047 Aug 2021

ENTERING INTO THE 75th YEAR OF INDIAN INDEPENDENCE
Early Childhood
Prafulla Chandra was born on 2 August 1861, the same year as Rabindranath Tagore, to accomplished parents Harish Chandra and Bhubanomohini Devi. His early childhood was spent in his native village. Till 1870, he studied in the village school founded by his father. He received his early intellectual training from conversations with his father and the books in his father’s library. By the age of nine, he had developed an inquisitive mind and studious habits, with a special liking for subjects like history and geography.
Prafulla Chandra developed a close
bond with village folks, a bond which he
maintained throughout his life. Even when
he was a young boy, Prafulla Chandra used
to take care of the poor villagers who fell ill
but did not have the means to procure the
prescribed diet. With his mother's consent, Prafulla Chandra used to take food items from his mother's store and distribute them among the sick. Many decades later, he would throw himself heart and soul into relief and rehabilitation work during the Khulna famine of 1921 and the devastating North Bengal floods in 1922, even though he was then over 60 years of age and had poor health. He would be ably assisted by young lieutenants like Meghnad Saha and Subhash Chandra Bose.
Prafulla Chandra's Studies (pre-College)
In 1870, Prafulla Chandra was admitted to Hare School in Calcutta (now Kolkata). The prescribed textbooks could never quench his intense thirst for knowledge and he became, in his own words, “a voracious devourer of books”. The lives of Newton, Galileo, William Jones, John Leyden and Benjamin Franklin fascinated him.
But after three years, in 1874, he developed a chronic health problem for which he had to discontinue regular school education and return to his ancestral home. In his autobiography he says it was a "blessing in disguise''. Set free "from the tyranny of the dull and dreary routine method of teaching followed in the schools'', Prafulla Chandra freely indulged in his passion for studies without hindrance.
During this period, he made an extensive study of English literature, witnessed a new dawn in Bangla literature opened up by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, studied topics in history and languages like Sanskrit and Latin wondering at their similarity. He retained a life-long interest in languages and would later study French and German. He would also read several newspapers and magazines, including articles on Physics, Zoology and Geology. However, literature and humanities dominated his studies.
In 1876, he returned to conventional education and was
Maharshi Dadhichi
Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray
admitted to Albert School, Calcutta. In 1879, he passed the school leaving examination. And now one sees the unfolding of the nationalist in Prafulla Chandra.
College Life in Calcutta
At that time, the most famous and prestigious college was the Presidency College. But it was a Government college run by the British. So, instead of joining Presidency, Prafulla Chandra joined the Metropolitan Institution (now Vidyasagar College), founded by the great Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar in 1872, even though it was a relatively new college with inadequate facilities. He joined the Metropolitan Institution as it was, in his own words, a “national institution and something we could look upon as our own” and because the Nationalist leader Surendranath Banerjee taught English prose in this college.
Prafulla Chandra had deep fascination for literature, languages and history and had acquired deep knowledge in them. Yet he decided to study science as he felt that modern science and technology held the key to India's progress. As Vidyasagar College did not have facilities for science, Prafulla Chandra used to go to Presidency College to attend chemistry and physics classes. He got attracted towards chemistry which was taught by Alexander Pedler who was highly skilled in performing experiments. But Prafulla Chandra was not content with what was taught in college. He reproduced Pedler’s experiments in a miniature laboratory at the home of a friend and tried to procure and study as many works in chemistry as he could lay his hands on.
At Edinburgh
In 1882, Prafulla Chandra joined the University of Edinburgh with the prestigious Gilchrist scholarship. In that year only two Indian students were selected for that scholarship. In the
18 dream 2047 / august 2021